Video gaming has expanded beyond the niche markets of children and so-called “hard core” garners. One reason video gaming has become mainstream entertainment is the extent of visual improvements in how games are depicted. They are now three-dimensional (3-D) and drawn far more lifelike. Another reason is the extent to which video games can simulate real-world environments from a physics perspective. Manipulated objects, light, and reactive physical objects bounce, reflect, and otherwise behave realistically. These two reasons relate to an appearance and a caliber of a video game.
Another reason for the increasing popularity of video games is the ability of a player to play against other opponents that are not proximate to the player via networking. Playing against, or with, other real people is typically more emotionally satisfying in terms of human interaction and socialization. Moreover, despite continued improvements in artificial intelligence (AI), it is still more challenging to compete against other humans at least from a creative and unpredictability standpoint. Of course, the ability to attain “bragging rights” over great distances as a motivation for networked game play should not be overlooked.
Although processing abilities and communication bandwidth continue to improve, maintaining the appearance and caliber of video games in a networked gaming environment is still difficult for game designers, especially as the number of players and gaming consoles involved increases. Game genres that are particularly popular for networked play are many, varied, and diverse. Examples include combat games, action games, role-playing games, strategy games, racing games, and so forth.
In racing games, for example, each player typically drives one car. If there are four drivers per game console and ten game consoles jointly engaged in a race, there are forty total cars to be simulated on the racecourse. Current processing and communication bandwidth limitations preclude handling forty cars while simultaneously maintaining the desired appearance and caliber of the racing game. Obstacles to scalability are analogous and equally daunting for other gaming genres.
Accordingly, there is a need for schemes and/or techniques that can enable the coordinated simulation of multiple vehicles across multiple networked devices in a scalable and/or efficient manner.